Just like the moons and like suns
with the certainty of tides
just like hope springing high
still I'll rise
Did you want to see me broken?
bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops
weakened by my soulful cries
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
cause i laugh like i've got gold mines
diggin' in my own back yard
You may shoot me with your words
You may cut me with your eyes
You may kill me with your hatefulness
But still, like air, i'll rise
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a suprise
that I dance like i've got diamonds
at the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide
welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave
I am the dream and the hope of the slave
I rise
I rise
I rise
- Maya Angelou